I’m Wat I’m!!!

Former captain Michael Vaughan has backed England to bounce back from the bitter loss in Chennai, saying that Kevin Pietersen and his men have the “bulldog spirit” to square the Test series against India in Mohali.

“One thing with the England team is we do have a ‘bulldog spirit’, a fighting spirit. We proved that in this game,” Vaughan said ahead of the second and final Test in Mohali starting December 19, 2008.

England dominated the first three days of the Chennai Test before losing the plot on the fourth day when Indian opener Virender Sehwag went on a rampage to snatch the match away from the visitors.

“It was a great game of cricket. Both teams played to an incredible standard in terms of what they’d gone through in the previous two weeks,” Vaughan was quoted as saying by ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

“The England team can be very proud of the way they played. For three-and-three-quarter days they dominated the Test and that is something which is very difficult to do in India,” he added.

Vaughan admitted that the six-wicket loss was a bitter pill to swallow, considering the way England dominated most part of the match. “The defining moment was that middle session (on day four) when we probably let the momentum sway back towards India when we could have nailed home the game.”

However, Vaughan, who is currently on a sabbatical from international cricket, said the task would be tough test of England’s mental strength. “We’ve just lost a real big game, a game that all the
lads would have expected to win on that fourth evening,” he said.

“It’s going to be a real task of mental strength. The boys are pretty drained and emotionally tired from what they’ve been through in the last few weeks. But if they win the toss, and bat, and get put runs on the board they can put India under a lot of pressure,” he added.

The right-hander, training with the England’s elite performance squad, said he is working towards his international comeback. “My mind is very refreshed and of course after such a great game of cricket I’m desperate to get out there and make decisions, play and score runs,” he said.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly says Rahul Dravid needs to get a big knock under his belt to ward off critics who have been questioning his place in the team for some time now.

“The pressure is bound to start mounting on Rahul Dravid after another below par effort and he must get a big score before the murmurings about his place in the team get louder,” Ganguly wrote in his column.

Dravid, who has been struggling with the bat ever since the last English summer, could only manage three in the first innings of the ongoing first Test against England in Chennai on Dec 11, 2008.

There was also much expected from Yuvraj Singh, who earned a recall to the Test team after an excellent performance in the ODI series, but the Chandigarh lad too disappointed scoring just 14.

“Yuvraj failed to make an impression in his comeback Test, but that was down to the supreme line and length that the English bowlers maintained against him,” Ganguly wrote.

“They used the short ball well, and also kept the spinners on, which Yuvraj does not enjoy when he starts his innings,” he added.

The classy southpaw also had a word of advice for England skipper Kevin Pietersen.

“Pietersen needs to adjust ‘mentally’ while batting in the subcontinent, as he is far too good a player to be gifting his wicket to the opposition. It’s paramount that he holds the English middle order together, especially in trying batting conditions,” Ganguly reckoned.

India’s most successful captain also wondered by India “always seem to struggle in the first Test of a new series” and hoped that a strong performance from the side was just around the corner.

The country’s second largest software services firm however has no plans to cut jobs and is sticking with its third quarter outlook, CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan told reporters.

He said the outsourcing sector’s growth rate would halve next year as some customers delay orders. “Last year the IT industry grew more than 30 per cent, this year it is looking at somewhere in the region of 15 per cent,” Gopalakrishnan said.

India’s export-driven IT sector, used to a scorching pace of growth, has been hit by the financial crisis and recession in the United States, which contributes more than half their revenue. In the last few years, the outsourcing industry has created tens of thousands of jobs, mainly attracting young workers, as global companies look to trim labour costs.

Infosys hired 16,000-17,000 employees in the first half of the fiscal year that began in April and would honour commitments to 6,000 under training, Gopalakrishnan said. Infosys, which counts Goldman Sachs and Philips Electronics among its clients, cut its full-year dollar revenue outlook in October due to the worsening global downturn.

Gopalakrishnan said on Dec 04, 2008 the company would freeze fresh recruitment, apart from meeting specific skill needs. “We will have to look at controlling our cost, controlling our expenses making sure that we run an optimised business. We will have to look at what are things we need to do in order to prepare ourselves for the recovery.” “Growth is coming more and more from emerging markets so hese are the things we need to prepare ourselves. We should not lose momentum in this slowdown,” he said.

But Infosys still expects its strong client base and a weakening rupee to help it meet a forecast for December quarter earnings of $0.57 a share. The Indian rupee has fallen nearly six per cent so far this quarter against the dollar.

“Infosys is seeing further degradation of the demand environment, with headwinds from leadership changes at customers, a shrinking large deal pipeline …. Pricing pressure has emerged,” CLSA Asia-Pacific said in a report this week.

Sachin Tendulkar said he would miss Bengali chatter with close pal Sourav Ganguly, who retired from international cricket.

Tendulkar recalled his long association with the elegant left-hander and said he owes the little Bengali he knows to his former opening partner in one-dayers.

“But the question I ask myself is who will I now speak to in Bengali? Well I have enjoyed conversing with him in that language and whatever Bengali I have picked up is thanks to him,” Tendulkar said in a newspaper column.

“Whenever we had a long partnership, I used to walk mid-pitch and speak a few Bangla words to ease the pressure of the situation,” he said.

Tendulkar went on to recount some pranks he had played on Ganguly during their days together in the Indian dressing room.

“Cricket lovers have heard about how I disturbed the watchman of the Nehru Stadium with my constant bat-hitting leather activities at night and the fact that he brought it to the attention of our coach Vasu Paranjape,” he wrote in ‘Mid-Day’.

“But not many have heard this — One day when Sourav was enjoying his rest and dozed off, I had his room flooded with water. Sourav woke up to the mini deluge surprised, shocked, staggered — in that order.

“His only solace was I made sure that his cricketing kit was not among the ruins. Imagine what a sight it would have been — his bats, pads floating in water.”